What’s Really Happening with The Ohio Housing Market
Why Prices Are Holding, Where Softness Is Emerging, and How Taxes & Inventory Will Shape 2026
Ohio’s housing market continues to behave in a way that catches many buyers, sellers, and analysts off guard.
While states like Texas and Florida are digesting oversupply and seeing prices slip, Ohio is dealing with the opposite problem: a housing market that never rebuilt its inventory.
And because supply remains extremely limited, most Ohio counties are still seeing price stability — and in many cases, new record highs — despite affordability challenges and rising costs. It’s a market defined less by demand surges and more by the simple absence of homes.
Inventory Is Still the Entire Story
No other factor explains Ohio’s market better than this:
There still aren’t enough homes for sale.
Homeowners locked into 2–4% mortgage rates are staying put. New construction has not kept pace. And with only a trickle of listings entering the market each month, buyers often face a shrinking pool of options rather than an expanding one.
As a result:
Price declines remain rare
Competition never fully disappears
First-time buyers continue facing limited choices
Ohio isn’t a hot market — it’s a supply-starved market, which can look very similar on paper.
County Strength vs. ZIP-Code Softness
When you look at Ohio by county, the picture appears overwhelmingly stable. Prices are up year-over-year in 84 out of 88 counties, according to your breakdown.
But when you zoom into specific ZIP codes, the structure starts to shift. Cities like Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati have neighborhoods where prices are slipping — even as the county overall rises.
These pockets are usually:
Older housing stock
Areas with affordability pressure
Places where supply rises even slightly
This isn’t evidence of a statewide downturn.
It’s evidence of a market splitting at the neighborhood level, not the county level.
Central Ohio: Small Inventory Gains, Big Implications
Central Ohio is the one region where change is showing up clearly.
You noted in your video that inventory here is rising faster than in most other parts of the state — not dramatically, but noticeably.
And even that modest shift is enough to:
Flatten price growth in Columbus
Push a few ZIP codes slightly negative
Give buyers a little more leverage
This isn’t the beginning of a crash — it’s the beginning of normalization, something Ohio hasn’t seen since before the pandemic.
Surrounding counties like Licking and Delaware aren’t weakening, but they’re certainly no longer seeing the rapid appreciation of the last few years.
Why Ohio’s Inventory Still Isn’t Recovering
Ohio’s supply problem isn’t a short-term issue — it’s structural.
According to your transcript:
Only 2% of homes in Ohio were built after 2020
Most homes on the market are older and require more maintenance
Existing owners with low rates refuse to move
Combine those factors, and you get a market where inventory simply cannot grow at the pace needed to balance prices.
Until more homes are built or more owners decide to list, Ohio will continue to operate with structural scarcity — even if demand cools.
Property Taxes: The Pain Point No One Can Ignore
If there is one issue uniting all 88 counties, it’s property taxes.
Your video highlights the new legislation passed by the Ohio House and Senate, intended to cap how fast property taxes can rise. But critically:
It does not reduce existing high tax bills
Local levies can still override caps
Refund calculations are unclear and handled behind-the-scenes
For many homeowners, particularly those who bought before major reassessments, this isn’t relief — it’s a slight slowdown of increases that already hit their budgets hard.
For buyers, especially first-time buyers, property taxes are becoming as big of a barrier as home prices themselves.
What’s Next for Ohio in 2026?
Ohio enters 2026 with a market defined by uneven stabilization:
Counties remain mostly strong
ZIP codes show early signs of softening
Inventory is inching up in some regions
Taxes remain unpredictable and burdensome
Whether the market changes meaningfully next year will depend on two pressures:
1. Does more supply hit the market?
Even a small uptick in listings — like what we’re seeing in Central Ohio — changes the dynamic quickly.
2. Do property taxes force owners to make different decisions?
High taxes can push people to move — but they can also freeze people in place, reducing supply even further.
For now, Ohio isn’t a boom or a bust. It’s a market transitioning slowly and unevenly, shaped mostly by what isn’t for sale rather than by what is.
